Zaeff's Tale
by Fistful of Force
Summary: Ever wonder why Zaunians are insane?


Zaeff was born in Askay to a middle class family of merchants. He grew up in a family of five with two older sisters that played with him, and cared for him, and two older brothers who would fight with him, yet still accept him. He was neither handsome or ugly, with black hair but a swarthy complexion. The best that could be said of him was that he was mediocre. When he was eight, he was tested for the rune magic and found positive. Having been informed that he would no longer be required to attend school if he became a summoner, and he was quite happy at the chance to attend the League Outpost in Zaun on exchange for a chance to never attend school again. So Zaeff and his parents boarded an airship and took the long 14-hour flight to Zaun.

* * *

><p>"What's your name?"<p>

"Huh?"

Zaeff looked around and couldn't see anyone.

"Over here silly!"

A hand reached out from behind his seat and poked him on his head, hard.

"Ow!"

Zaeff scowled and turned around. Although the airship was quite uncrowded, it was still hard to see who had poked him. He look around. Sitting behind him, between the aisle and a sleeping older woman, was a girl no older than he was, with brown hair and a big smile. But the thing that caught Zaeff's eyes the most was her eyes, which were full of life and sparkling with a joy that was unbecoming of someone her age.

"What's your name? My name's Nessin!" she said with a big smile.

Zaeff thought for a moment.

"Zaeff. I'm going to the League of Legends to be a summoner and a hero!"

Nessin gasped.

"Wow really? Why?"

Zaeff took a self important sniff. "They tested me for magic and they said I had enough to be a summoner. So I'm going to be one."

Nessin laughed. "You're so lucky! They tested me too, but they said I didn't have enough. So I had to be a minion."

Zaeff looked at her. He didn't know that there would be other people besides him who would be going to be summoners like him!

"Let's play!" Nessin giggled, "We can pretend we're summoners and heroes and fighting for our city state in the league of legends! And I can be the high summoner and you can be my champion and we can defeat anyone that would threaten the balance of Runeterra!"

"Who is this Nessin?" The middle aged woman had woken up. and was looking at Zaeff intently.

"This is Zaeff, he's my friend, and he said he was going to be a summoner and we're gonna play league of legends, and he's going to be my champion!"

Zaeff had never been especially motivated to think before, but something now called to him. Maybe it was the waxing rune magic in him, or maybe it was the thousands of business deals he had heard in his father's study, but something prompted him to take a closer look at the older woman. He didn't see anything special though. It seemed as though she had been crying. He wondered idly whether she had broken a favorite toy.

"Zaeff, this is my mommy, she's taking me to the league outpost."

Nessin's mother smiled at Nessin. "Here, take some money and go buy some candy."

"Thanks mother!" Nessin gasped, and they both ran off to the store compartment of the airship, where they pretended he was Garen and had fun yelling at people who came in the door.

* * *

><p>"Zaeff!"<p>

"?", Zaeff woke up, startled from his sleep by a hand shaking him. It was dark, and his parents were asleep. The only light came from the starlight filtered through the glass windows.

"Zaeff!"

A hand shook him again, but this time he caught it. He glanced backwards,

"Nessin?"

Nessin quickly nodded her head up and down, with a grin plastered on her face. Her pink dress bobbed up and down as she practically jumped onto him. She grabbed him and then they went, whether he wanted to go or not!

"Nessin? What's going on? Where are you taking me?" Zaeff had been sleeping a mere minute ago, but he was wide awake now. _Where is she taking me? I hope its fun!_ Zaeff's mind did not even contain the possibility that Nessin would hurt him or trouble him.

"Come on!"

And just like that, Zaeff went. He trusted her implicitly, with a innocence born of youth and excitement. She led, with the simple exuberance of having a friend.

* * *

><p>"Here we are!"<p>

Zaeff and Nessin had arrived at the observation deck of the airship. This airship was one of the new models, with wind and force magic rather than glass creating a dome around a platform fitted to the bottom of the airship.

"Isn't it great?" Nessin exclaimed, dancing around excitedly.

"It's ok, I guess..." Zaeff was disappointed. He had been expecting more candy, or failing that, an adventure. He didn't know what kind of adventure, but it would have been better than this.

"What?" Nessin looked at him and pouted, "You don't like it?"

"No, it's ok, like I said, I just expected something more... I dunno... adventure-y" Zaeff said in an attempt to appease her. If there was one thing he had learned from having two older sisters, it was that it never payed to make them angry. They could yell at you, or worst... cry.

"..."

Zaeff winced. He shut his eyes and clapped his hands over his ears in preparation for the inevitable tears.

"..."

After a few seconds or tearlessness, Zaeff cautiously opened one eye a crack. Nessin was no longer in front of him. She was instead looking over a balcony by the edge of the platform.

"...You aren't going to yell at me for not liking something you showed me?" Zaeff said carefully.

Nessin looked at him curiously and tilted her head a bit.

"Why should I? Everybody likes different things. My mom told me that Only idiots like Maria, she's a girl in my school, think that everyone should like whatever they like. It's not like you don't like me."

Nessin smiled mischievously.

"You do like me, don't you?"

Zaeff was about to say 'No, of course not, don't be ridiculous, who would like an icky girl?', when he suddenly realized he had an urge to say yes.

_What a curious feeling, _though Zaeff, _I wonder why...wait, what am I doing now? This must be what mom means when she says, 'Think before you talk', only she always says I think too much so I have no idea why she would say that since if I think too much wouldn't it be better to not think before I talk? Some of the things she says makes no sense at all._

"Well?" Nessin had walked in front of him and had stuck her face in front of his. Zaeff wasn't fooled. Daddy had once told him that people only did that to make you afraid, and if you didn't step back, it would make _them_ afraid, and they would listen to you with more care.

"I guess..." Zaeff thought about how he felt and answered honestly, with no bad intent, "I guess I do."

Then a wondrous thing happened. Nessin laughed! It was a beautiful laugh, soft, yet loud at the same time '_how is that possible?'_. She put her arms around Zaeff and hugged her tightly.

"Yay! Now we can be friends, and play with each other, and fight with each other, and use magic with each other, and do all sorts of stuff with each other! Best friends forever!"

Zaeff couldn't help it, he let a small smile grow on his face even thought daddy had said smiling showed weakness _'although maybe he meant only to business partners'_

"Nessin? Nessin? Where are you?" A voice called out from the hallway.

"Uh oh... I didn't tell mommy I was here... Let's run!"

She ran and he followed.

* * *

><p>They had arrived at the outpost and Zaeff and Nessin parted ways. Zaeff would forever remember the face on Nessin's face as they separated. Her eyes still sparkled.<p>

After leaving the air dock, Zaeff's family quickly boarded a taxi to the League outpost in Zaun. Upon arriving, Zaeff's parent had brought him to the headmaster's office to get his supplies and register him. After what seemed to be an really long eternity, his parents and the headmaster had finally stopped talking and were taking him to his rooms where he would be spending the next six years.

His parent continued to talk with the head master they walked across the school grounds and Zaeff's mind began to wander. He took in the daily bustle of the outpost, the various disciples and running around, the summoners in training going from class to class, and a line a people in plain clothes walking across the field.

That was weird, a group of people without uniforms in a place where everyone should be wearing one. Zaeff would have never thought of it before, but ever since he had seen Nessin's mommy crying on the airship, he was finding all kinds of strange things all over the place. He looked closer at the line.

"Nessin!" There in the middle of the line, was Nessin. But there was something wrong with her. Her eyes no longer sparkled.

"You know one of the minions?" Said the head master. His parents had left to go get his baggage.

Zaeff nodded hesitatingly. "What are they?"

"Oh nothing much. People unlike you and I, who will never have as much magic as we do. They thin out the gene pool you see, and lower the quality of the population simply by existing. When they are discovered, they send them here, and we hextechify them and they work in the fields. It takes a lot of magic to power a nexus you see, and we can't use the normal minions to clean up the fields after a battle. Instead, we send them in and they clean things up. Sometimes we sent them into the battle if there's a mistake and there are enough normal minions for each wave."

Zaeff swallowed his spit. He was going to have to be vary careful. The way the headmaster was looking at him was the way that Noxian merchant had been looking at his father before he had sent some hired hands to steal from their warehouses. Looking for weakness.

"Oh, I see." Zaeff shrugged nonchalantly and looked ahead rigidly, "Tell me more about the nexus' again?"

* * *

><p>Zaeff was twenty-two now, and the junior summoner in charge of the minion summoning for the League battles here at Summoner's rift, a prominent position that was awarded only to the strongest, junior summoner, a position he well deserved. In his time as the chief and forty three battles in the league there had been no problems. Not one.<p>

"Zaeff, the battle's going to commence in an hour!" Narcissa called out from outside his study.

"I will be there, Narcissa," said Zaeff, "Now leave."

Zaeff finished writing his final sentence on his treatise on the use of rune magic and motioned for the minion assigned to him for his summoner's robe. If his treatise was approved, he would soon be a fully fledged summoner. Soon.

The minion bumped into the table, knocking over several of his belongings.

"Stupid beast!" Zaeff cursed, and roughly grabbed his robe from the minion. he got up and walked over to the door, the minion followed him.

Zaeff smiled a vicious smile, one tightly held to his heart after years of experience in political intrigue and bone tiring work. His black hair was pulled back behind his head, and his eyes glinted dangerously in the hexlight. His heart burned with a unholy fervor, one born of endless rage and tempered under infinite duress.

He roughly grabbed hold on the minion's brown hair and pulled his hand through it, searching in those empty eyes for any trace that his illegal experiments had any effect.

"Soon," he muttered, "soon."

* * *

><p>And here we go! I hope you will enjoy this tale from Runeterra! This story came from a dream I had after playing LoL for like 5 hours than going to sleep at like two. I woke up from this really bizzare dream and I was like, This would totally make an awesome story! Like totally! *kills self for using that phrase*<p>

Read and review please =D

Some of the writing felt a bit rushed, but I honestly didn't know what to write to slow down the pacing. meh. Give me ideas. I COMMAND YOU!


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